Psychological entitlement: New research unveils link to pandemic non-compliance and conspiracy beliefs

A series of three studies revealed that individuals with pronounced psychological entitlement were more likely to have visited non-essential venues such as buffets, spas, and casinos during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and that these risky behaviors were related to heightened belief in conspiracy theories. The new research was published in the Journal of Social Psychology.

Conspiracy theories are beliefs that suggest significant events or situations result from secret, often malevolent, plots by groups or individuals. They typically contest the official narrative provided by authoritative sources, suggesting that powerful entities covertly manipulate events for their own benefit.

Research indicates that those endorsing conspiracy theories are more likely to refuse vaccinations and make health-related decisions detrimental to societal welfare, such as spreading disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, various conspiracy theories emerged, denying the pandemic’s existence or misinterpreting the virus’s characteristics or origins.

Further research has suggested a connection between the level of conspiracy theory endorsement and a sense of entitlement. Psychological entitlement is a personality trait characterized by the enduring belief that one deserves more than others, often irrespective of merit or fairness. Individuals with a high sense of entitlement typically expect special treatment and may become easily frustrated or angry when their expectations are not met, leading to interpersonal conflicts and difficulties in social and professional settings.

In their new study, Lukas Neville and his colleagues posited that entitled individuals might gravitate towards conspiracy theories as a defense mechanism against threats to their self-concept. By endorsing conspiracy theories, these individuals find justification for violating social norms. For instance, “sovereign citizen” theories can rationalize tax evasion, while COVID conspiracy theories might justify ignoring health recommendations or lockdown measures intended to curb the virus’s spread.

“My coauthors have had an ongoing interest in how entitlement influences workplace behavior. Entitlement is about feeling like you are owed unearned, special treatment and favors. We have other papers about the effects of entitlement in workplace interactions — for example, its effect on service workers and negotiator,” explained Neville, an associate professor of organizational behavior at the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba.

“During the pandemic — while we were still in the stage before vaccines, when ICUs were overflowing — we heard all sorts of stories about people breaking or bending the rules and norms about isolating. When we read these stories, our thoughts immediately turned to this personality trait we had studied before — entitlement.”

The research team conducted three studies to explore these dynamics.

In the first study, the researchers investigated the relationship between psychological entitlement and general conspiracy beliefs, also examining the role of perceived injustice in moderating this relationship. The participants, 333 undergraduate students, completed assessments measuring entitlement and conspiracy theory ideation. To induce feelings of injustice, a subset of participants wrote about an instance when they received a grade they deemed unfair, while comparison groups wrote about a deserved grade or their most recent grade.

The second study surveyed 216 U.S. and Canadian MTurk workers, assessing their levels of entitlement, conspiracy beliefs, and the frequency of their visits to 13 non-essential services or venues during the preceding 30 days of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting these visits as public health risks.

The third study surveyed 172 MTurk workers in October 2020, who had also participated in a June 2020 study. This survey evaluated their entitlement, non-essential outings during the 2020 lockdowns, partisan identification, COVID-specific conspiracy beliefs, and general conspiracy beliefs.

The results from the first study confirmed that individuals with a higher sense of entitlement were more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs, particularly displaying a stronger conspiracy mentality. The perceived level of injustice did not alter the strength of this association.

“We thought that part of the reason conspiracies were catnip for the entitled was because of felt injustice,” Neville said. “People who think they’re owed special treatment and extra favors often feel like they’ve experienced terrible injustices when they don’t get that special treatment. Our expectation was that conspiracy theories would come from that sense of injustice — if you think you’ve been mistreated, conspiracies help you to pin the blame for that on shadowy outside forces.”

“We had one little experiment that tested this idea, and we didn’t find anything. So it’s still an open question as to why conspiracy theories seem to have a special appeal for people high in entitlement.”

The second study demonstrated a significant correlation between entitlement and conspiracy theory beliefs, with individuals exhibiting stronger entitlement and conspiracy theory endorsement reporting more discretionary outings during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The findings of the third study corroborated earlier results, linking entitlement to COVID-19 related conspiracy beliefs. The authors proposed a statistical model suggesting that higher psychological entitlement leads to stronger conspiracy beliefs, which in turn, result in more discretionary visits to non-essential venues during lockdowns. Although this model was partially supported, it explained only a portion of the relationship between entitlement and these visits.

“We find that there are some social costs to entitlement,” Neville told PsyPost. “When people feel like they deserve extra special, unearned treatment, they’re more at risk of believing in conspiracy theories, and more likely to break or bend the rules that have been established for public health.”

“The problem for most people is what to do with this knowledge. In this study, like in many others, we find that there are some dark consequences to entitlement. But psychological entitlement is a personality trait. It’s hard to change!”

“The one possibility I might suggest comes from other researchers’ recent work on entitlement,” Neville said. “They find that when people are encouraged to reflect on the things they’re grateful for, it can help to tamp down their natural sense of entitlement. Individuals, parents, managers, and organizations can all think about the routines and habits that can give people a chance to reflect on their gratitude.”

The study sheds light on the links between psychological entitlement and conspiracy ideation. However, it should be noted that the design of these studies does not allow any cause-and-effect inferences to be drawn from the data regarding the nature of their link. Additionally, retrospective self-reports about going outside home during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns might not be fully representative of risky or behaviors harmful for the society in general.

“These were people self-reporting their own health behaviors,” Neville explained. We don’t know how accurately they reported their own actions. We measured entitlement, and some other related personality traits like narcissism, but there are other traits that might explain these effects other than entitlement. We think the ‘story’ makes sense — but as with a lot of other personality research, it’s hard to determine which personality trait is actually driving the bus.”

“And, lastly, again related to our study designs, we told the story that people bought into conspiracy theories and then felt okay going out and breaking lockdowns or bending isolation rules. But who knows — it could go the other way. Perhaps people choose to go out because they feel they deserve it, and then they endorse conspiracy theories afterward as a way of justifying the behaviors they already engaged in. I think of this as an interesting first discovery, but there’s lots more to be done to better understand how entitlement works in this context.”

Regarding the long-term goals for this line of research, Neville remarked that he is interested in further exploring ways to reduce psychological entitlement or buffer against its negative effects.

“In the long run, I think there are a lot of entitlement researchers who feel this way: We keep finding terrible effects of entitlement, but we rarely seem to find anything that helps to reduce entitlement’s effects,” he explained. “That was certainly the story of our earlier negotiation study — we kept finding that entitled negotiators would use unethical tactics. And everything we tried to reduce that didn’t work. So, I think the long-run question is to better understand what can be done to reduce the development and expression of this trait.”

“Our paper isn’t about the workplace, really, but based on everything we’ve learned in this field about the destructiveness of entitlement, I would just beg hiring managers: Don’t hire people who are high in entitlement!” Neville added. “Don’t reward, encourage, and promote them! There’s a great book by Bob Sutton called The No Asshole Rule, and I think it has a lot of wisdom that applies here. There’s not a lot that can be done to reduce the negative effects of entitlement, so hire and promote for gratitude, for humility, for altruism. Weed entitlement out before it can take root.”

The paper, “Psychological entitlement and conspiracy beliefs: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic,” was authored by Lukas Neville, Glenda M. Fisk, and Katarina Ens.